Life with the Woods

Saturday, January 2, 2010

It's a Girl in winter 2009!!!

Hello all... it's been awhile since our last post, but we've been very busy over the past few months. First, we'd like to share some of our newest baby pictures. We had our second ultra-sound on December 11th (18 weeks along). Everything looked good developmentally, and all of our genetic screenings came back normal. We also found out that we are having a little girl! Yippee! We are both really excited and are having fun looking at all of the sweet little girl things. Thank you to all of you have kept us in your prayers over these past few months. We've all been feeling pretty well and getting bigger by the day (except Mike :) ). Please continue to pray as Baby Woods continues to grow and develop. She'll be here before we know it! I've also included some pictures from the past couple of months. Enjoy!

She is already using her new brain power...

Tami's getting bigger...

We spent October in Texas and had a really wonderful time seeing our friends and family. Our first stop was Houston/Montgomery to see Mike's side of the family. We then went to Austin and Round Rock to stay with Tami's sister, visit with Mike's sister's family and cousin Angela, and then stay with some friends. After Austin, we headed to San Antonio to stay with the Harts and visit with tons of old friends. Our last major stop was the Valley to see Tami's side of the family. While we were in the Valley, we had the honor of being part of Tami's best friends' wedding. (They married each other!) It was so good to see so many friends and friends that are like family at Jennifer and Graham's wedding. We were even able to share our baby news with Jenn and Graham in person, which was such a blessing.
Uncle Mike with Justin and Caitlyn.

Tami learned a new hobby in Montgomery. The targets were the squirrels who eat out of the bird feeders.

Caitlyn and Jacob enjoyed some yoga with Uncle Mike while Ella and Justin watched.

Sidewalk chalk with the family - From left: Poppie, Laura and Molly (in the back), Mom Woods and Ella, Tami, and Jacob.

We went to The Oasis with Erinn and Mark (Tami's sister and brother-in-law) in Austin. Mike enjoyed a ride to the moon!

We had tons of fun visiting our friends, the Whitakers in Austin.

Marcus, Jennie, and Dixie Whitaker.

Tami and Mike enjoying Sonic!!!

Jennie, Marcus, and Tami take a break with T-Rex during mini-golf.

In San Antonio, the Harts and Houcks took us to one of our old favorites.

Tami and Mike enjoying some Freebird's.

Here are some links to pictures from the wedding. Tami got to walk down the aisle with her old friend Craig Butters. Jenn and Graham looked so beautiful (and handsome). Actually the whole event was really spectacular, but we all still had tons of fun!
http://ensignphoto.zenfolio.com/p871238292/e33f2dd49

http://ensignphoto.zenfolio.com/p871238292/e3d4dc238

http://ensignphoto.zenfolio.com/p984280009/e2c8d84f4

http://ensignphoto.zenfolio.com/p984280009/e22f4164a

http://ensignphoto.zenfolio.com/p984280009/e37a65148

In early December, Chris and Bianca Leonard came to visit us. We took a stay-cation to Maui. It was.... full of funny memories! :)

Tami and Mike on the whale watching tour boat.

Bianca and Tami at the harbor in Maui.

Back in Oahu, Rebekah Rainwater (another TX transplant), Bianca, and Tami at Lewer's lounge.

We enjoyed a very festive month of December leading up to Christmas. Our Christmas was really wonderful and relaxing this year. Per tradition, we woke up early (~6:30am our time) to open gifts with Tami's family over speakerphone. We then began preparing lunch/brunch for some of our closest friends here in Honolulu. Once everyone had gone home, we enjoyed a nice long weekend of being at home with each other. For New Year's, we headed up to the Allports (another annual tradition) to have dinner and watch fire works... aka the locals "blowing up the island". We exchanged gifts with the Allports on the 7th day of Christmas. Our wonderful god-daughters decided that they wanted to share their things with "baby Woods". They picked out a beautiful new baby bag and filled it with some of their favorite toys and books.

Tami and Pita starting the Christmas conference call.

Abigail and Maggie Allport showing off their ballet moves in the ballet gear we gave them.

Carrie, Abigail, and Maggie Allport at our New Year's Eve/7th day of Christmas celebration.

We hope that you are having as wonderful of a Christmas Season as we have, and we wish you a blessed New Year in 2010!

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Another Adventure Begins!

Well, as some of you already know, there is a new Woods on the way! For those of you who we haven't been able to tell personally, I'm sorry you're learning this via our blog. But, I didn't want the pictures to get much older and out of date! So, we are prego! "Short Rice" Woods is almost 13 weeks old now, over 2 inches long, and already demonstrating some very obvious personality traits. We went to the ultrasound place last Friday for our initial genetic screenings. The baby needed to be in a certain position to meet the standards for certain measurements being taken. The doctor said that it could take 5 minutes or as long as it took to get it right. Well... being our kid... it took them about 2 hours to finally coerce him/her into the position they wanted instead of what he/she wanted. Sounds familiar doesn't it? Well, we are very excited and looking forward to finding out what gender it will be in about 4 weeks. Our due date is May 15th, so please keep us all in your prayers!

Just stretching the legs...

Allright, I've had enough already...

Saturday, July 25, 2009

Lanai

As some of you know, I (Tami) won a radio contest a few months ago with the prize being 80,000 frequent flyer miles on Hawaiian Airlines. What that translates to is about 5 inter-island round trip flights. In early June, we found out that we both would be getting King Kamehameha Day (a Thursday this year) off at work. So, I figured if I was getting Thursday off, I deserved to have Friday as well. (Mike's day off is Friday.) And what better way to spend a long weekend than on a "stay-cation" to the island of Lanai. Our friends, Mike and Sarah Benson, have raved about this island, so we figured we'd give it a try. There is something called a "Kama'aina rate" (for the locals) here on many things, including hotels. With free flights and discounted hotel and amenities, we were ready to head to the Four Seasons Lodge at Ko'ele. The Lodge is an amazing English-inspired country manor set up in the mountains of Lanai. The Four Seasons also has an amazing resort on the ocean at Manele Bay. This resort is more Asian inspired and offers all of the luxuries of being at the beach. There are shuttles that run every hour between the two resorts, so you can enjoy all of the activities and amenities at each. It was WONDERFUL! It was one of those places where you could keep yourself constantly busy or do nothing at all and still be perfectly content. We did a little of both. Enjoy the view from our latest adventure to Lanai.

We took a smaller prop plane from Lanai back to Oahu, but we started off the trip with a little more fun. We flew to Maui and took a 45 minute ferry ride from Lahaina to Lanai.

Leaving Lahaina behind.

Mike on the ferry.

Our first Lanai sighting. Land-ho!

After our day of traveling, we finally arrived at The Lodge at Koele.

Looking back down the road from the front lanai of The Lodge.

While having dinner I couldn't help but look around in awe at our beautiful surroundings. It was surreal to be in a hotel like this in Hawaii. It felt like we should go skiing the next day.

The Great Room at The Lodge. There were fireplaces in use on either side of the room.

The Lodge's library.

We spent several afternoon/evenings in The Lodge's game room. We played pool, backgammon, and shuffle board.

Tami enjoying some coffee and dessert after a long day of traveling.

Mike was dying to try out these resting areas next to the fireplaces in the great room.

On one afternoon, we explored the grounds at The Lodge.

Tami admiring the gi-normous Koi pond. Can you see them in the water?

Mike on his way to the orchid house.

The orchid house had some livestock grazing out front.

We thought these were hysterical.

One of the many beauties!

Something else we discovered while roaming the grounds.

Looking back toward The Lodge.

To Mike's delite, there was a mini-golf course on the grounds next to the main course. He dominated... of course.

I spent most of my golf-time checking out things like our new friend "Drurtle". He's part dragon, part turtle. Mike humored me by taking a picture with him. My two favorite guys on the golf course.

We spent most of our days down at the resort at Manele Bay.

Mike posing at the front entrance of Manele Bay.

When we walked into the front entrance, we were greeted by this glorious view.

The more Asian inspired great room at the Manele Bay resort.

The view from our umbrella - looking back up at the hotel.

On the first day, there were very few people at either resort. By the middle of the second day, a group came in for some sort of conference. All of these chairs were filled... and then some. Despite more people to look at, we always had a place at the pool and at the beach. We were pampered with iced water/juice, cold towels, and treats like these cucumbers for our eyes.